


Nature/Nurture

by cupiscent



Category: Bandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupiscent/pseuds/cupiscent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete's old life and his new collide (Sixteen Candles universe)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature/Nurture

**Author's Note:**

> A friend of mine tells this story where his father said to him, "I made you, I can unmake you..."

It feels like New Jersey hasn't changed a bit, but maybe it's just the night that's always the same.

Pete got the message not long after sunset; the others were still out when his phone beeped, an unknown number that Pete frowned at before thumbing through to the message. Mikey obviously had no faith that Pete would've kept his number all this time (justifiably) and had signed off with _MFW_.

Above that, he'd said, _WBs back in town_.

Pete only delayed long enough to pin a note to Patrick's door.

He gets carded - actually fucking checked for ID - on the door, and when he finds Mikey, it's in the same old corner as ever.

Mikey blinks, which for him is basically falling over in shock, and disentangles himself from a pretty brunette who doesn't even notice for how volubly she's disagreeing with some lank-haired pretentious twit. (Pete can throw labels; he saw one in the mirror every day for years.) Mikey nudges them away from the corner and into dead space, saying, "Pete. I thought you were--" Pete's waiting for _dead_ , but isn't that surprised when what he gets it, "--living as a woman in South America."

It's easy to say, "You want proof?" and drop his hands to his belt buckle, because Mikey's hardly changed at all, and Pete's almost dizzy with nostalgia for easier times.

Just thinking that is enough; the reminder of what he's actually doing here cuts across that ebullience like detergent through grease. Pete doesn't know what it does to his expression, but Mikey tilts his chin and says, "By the bar. You always said--" But Pete's already turning away, and Mikey interrupts himself to say, "Pete--"

"Forget you know me," Pete tosses over his shoulder, and doesn't even pause. It's better that way, he thinks.

And then the crowd ebbs between him and the bar, and he _knows_ it's better that way, like a punch to the fucking gut.

William Beckett's standing at the bar, without hat or fur, but with a tall, dark figure draped across his shoulder, murmuring in his ear as Beckett smirks, coy as a blushing virgin. For once - for possibly the only time in his new life - William Beckett isn't actually the first thing on Pete's mind, because the guy now grinning against the side of his neck is Gabe Saporta.

It's a pretty crowded moment, as _years_ of memories all jostle for prime position. Drinking until they puked and long afternoons of talking shit and three-hour phonecalls and giggling until he couldn't stand and waking up naked and sordid and breakups and birthdays and fistfights and vodka and.

A crowded moment, and the next he's ducking behind a pillar, ignoring the filthy look he gets from a girl with ironed hair and a rag of a dress as he bumps her elbow. Then anger rushes into the vacuum shock has left inside him, so much that when he presses his knuckles against the pillar his fist is trembling slightly. _Fuck_ William fucking Beckett and his endless games. Pete thinks - just for a moment - of Gabe's grin and his voice at four in the morning and easy, perfect brotherhood that nothing could betray except ending it without so much as a word...

Just for a moment, then he swallows it down hard.

He doesn't have to lurk much longer than half an hour before the happy fucking couple split off from the bar, Beckett shaking his head and laughing as Gabe tugs at his hand; when they finally separate, Gabe bounces onto the dancefloor, and Beckett slinks towards the stairs. Pete shadows him up on silent feet - he _knows_ he's fucking silent, but he still can't really say he's surprised when Beckett stops, his fingers grazing the door to the men's room, and says, "I could just about _taste_ your righteous loathing down there." He's still facing away, down towards the big flashy picture window at the end of the hall. His voice is as well-modulated as ever, laced with the warm mockery Pete was once willing to die to be on the inside of.

He takes a couple of steps down the corridor. "None of your nancy-boys here to back you up, this time."

"None of your little friends either." Beckett turns, and he looks so strange like this, so soft and young and _human_ , right up until he smiles. It's got a curve like a predator's prowl.

The door to the men's room opens, and Beckett's head twitches that way, lips drawn back from fangs in a territorial hiss. Pete seizes his opportunity; the same moment the door slams shut again, some startled clubber's weight behind it, his own shoulder hits Beckett in the solar plexus.

They go over in a tangle. Beckett's shoulder bounces off the polished floor, Pete catches a side table with his shin, bringing a vase crashing down - lilies scattering - as they skid and roll along the hall. Pete goes for Beckett's throat, not looking to squeeze at all, just looking to tear, to get this _over with_ , but Beckett slides out of his grip like he's oiled. He's got a hand around Pete's wrist, knuckles twisting in his hair, a knee up between them and his foot just inside Pete's hip kicking him up and off, _hard_.

Pete can't be winded anymore, but the impact against the wall still takes a moment to recover from, which is long enough for Beckett to grab him. Pete breaks his grip and smashes his elbow into Beckett's chin. He gets his feet swept out from under him in return, and they both go down again; Pete's rolling even as he lands, but by the time he lurches upright, Beckett's already standing, stepping forward as nonchalant as if this were a ball, not a brawl.

Pete refuses to even contemplate the idea that he might lose. This is the moment he's been living for. Existing for. Hanging on for. He goes in, hard, again and again, pounding every bit of the grudge he's been nursing into Beckett's skinny body, his delicate fucking cheekbones, his blandishing mouth. Every bit that he can. Every bit that Beckett doesn't dodge, or block, or turn effortlessly aside. Every bit that doesn't lead inexorably to Pete back on the floor, gasping for air that won't help him now.

He surges up off one knee, driving his shoulder into Beckett's chin, a knee into his stomach, but even as Beckett staggers, he gets a hand around the back of Pete's neck. His grip is like steel - cold, hard and immovable - and Pete's forehead meets the wall so hard he sees stars and darkness. When he blinks them away, he's on his hands and knees, Beckett hauling him back up again. Pete tries, but he can't break the hold, not even when Beckett lifts him, struggling, completely off the ground and _throws him_.

The glass of the big picture window claws at him, like it's reluctant to let him through, but neither of them have any say in the matter. Pete hangs for a weightless moment in the cold night air before gravity slams him back to earth.

The alleyway's damp under his cheek and palm, gritty with glass. For a moment, the night's silent, and then hearing catches up with him, distant traffic and nearby shrieking and the whisper of a body through air that ends with immaculate shoes landing lightly six inches from Pete's hand.

He tries to get up, without any expectation of success, and just manages to grind window shards beneath him. William nudges at him, toe digging into his ribs, and states from on high, "You are such a goddamn disappointment."

When William crouches, it's fastidiously, with his wrist resting on his knee and the cuffs of his jeans still out of the muck; in Pete's skewed peripheral vision he tosses his hair out of his face. Pete's pleased to see that at least William's bleeding too, a sluggish ooze from his temple of something that looks almost black in this low light. Pete gets an elbow beneath him, levers himself a little up off the ground, and braces against William pushing him flat again, but the shove never comes.

Instead, William sighs, long-suffering, and continues, "You had so much potential. You could have been a _prince_."

"The world was my oyster?" Pete wheezes sarcastically, up on both elbows now, experimenting with a knee.

William snarls, lurches back up, and a foot in his ribs rolls Pete over onto his back, coughing as the stars wheel crazily overhead. William's over him a moment later, fisting his shirtfront to drag him up, nose to angry nose. "But you won't stop thinking like a _fucking_ human." He shoves, hard, and Pete goes staggering back, his feet slipping. By the time he gets his balance, William's smiling like he knows all the best secrets, ephemeral as ever, stalking forward, glass crunching beneath his shoes. "So here's the thing," he says, and Pete hates that smile, hates his own reaction to it, hates the way the smile widens like William knows all of that. "Your friend in there would bare his throat to my mouth without hesitation. And if I kill him - or better yet, turn him..." Rage curls Pete's hands into fists, and William's smile just twists into a smirk. "Well, that might actually tip you that last little bit. You could become everything I always hoped you would. You might actually be able to kill me. You might even take my place. You'd be so _good_."

He tilts nonchalantly, insinuatingly, towards Pete; his hand comes up to trail a caressing finger down Pete's cheek, but Pete ducks away from it. William's other hand slams around the base of his neck, forcing Pete back against the wall. His eyes have narrowed, his smile gone. "But if I don't," William says, prim and precise. "If I keep him safe and hale and _human_ , if I let him play at his pathetic, fragile life, then you will always know that I am not the evil you'd paint me as." His lips curve now, the faintest and cruellest of smiles. "And if I'm not the villain, how can you be the hero?

"Shall we," he continues, genteel politeness thick and mocking in his voice, "let chance decide?" The hand not holding Pete against brickwork holds up a shining silver dollar, flashing between William's long, clever fingers as he rolls it across his knuckles, then sends it spinning up into the air.

Pete can't help it; his eyes are drawn after it on its path.

"Call it," William's voice murmurs in his ear, but the pressure on his throat disappears and when the coin comes tumbling back down to clatter on the cobblestones, Pete's alone in the alley.

Or so he thinks, sliding down the wall into a crouch, staring at the dollar coming to a ringing rest, heads up. So he thinks, until an astonished voice says, "Pete?"

Pete looks up so fast his neck twinges. He doesn't think he's ever, in all the long years he knew Gabe Saporta, seen him look as flabberghasted as he looks right now, taking a tentative, half-sideways step down the alleyway towards Pete. Aside from that, he's barely changed at all, so familiar it makes Pete light-headed. He wants nothing more than to meet him halfway, with a complicated handshake and a sweeping hug and a lot of laughter. He wants alcohol and oblivion and Gabe too loud in his ear.

Gabe's frozen feet away, but any moment now he'll snap out of it, stride forwards, swear up a storm, forgive Pete without a word even being said. Pete can have all of that.

Except he can't forgive himself.

Except he hasn't come back, can't even pretend he's the same person who walked away - who fucking _danced_ away - in the first place.

Except he can't keep Gabe safe, not from William. Unless he wants to steal him away, induct him into this life as sure as biting him. And even then...

Pete's running before he's aware he's made the decision. Gabe's voice reaches him faintly over his feet pounding on the pavement, but Pete doesn't even look back. Can't. Not even if it feels like he's leaving a part of his carefully hoarded humanity back there in the alleyway.

He runs without thinking about direction. He doesn't get puffed. The New Jersey night passes him by and doesn't care.

He starts to understand why the night always feels so familiar.

And then his pocket vibrates, jolting him out of his stride, sending him staggering against the corner of a building. A trio of passing stiletto-d girls giggle at him, weaving around him and moving on in a cloud of perfume and hair product and warm, essential life. Pete's staring after them when he finally manages to pull his ringing phone out of his pocket and drag his eyes down to the display.

 _Stumph_.

Pete closes his eyes, drags air into his lungs for the first time in a while, and feels anew all the damage he's sustained tonight.

And then he flips his phone open. "I don't know where I am," he says.

"We'll find you," Patrick says, without hesitation. "What's the nearest intersection?"

Pete opens his eyes.


End file.
